[Purpose] The purpose of this study is to compare the rectus abdominis and multifidus muscle activity and rectus abdominis/multifidus ratio ratios during various leg-raising exercises. [Subject and Methods] This study was conducted on 10 healthy males. Leg-raising exercises were performed in four different positions. [Results] The activity of the rectus abdominis was greatest for raising the legs while flexing the trunk. The rectus abdominis/multifidus ratio value of co-contraction of the rectus abdominis and multifidus was lowest for raising the legs while flexing the knees...

BACKGROUND: Minimally invasive pedicle screw fixation has less approach-related morbidity than open screw placement and is allegedly less traumatizing on paravertebral muscles, as there is no requirement to mobilize and retract the adjacent muscle portion. The approach-related long-term effects to the morphology of the paravertebral muscles are unknown. The purpose of this study was to compare the long-term amount of fatty degeneration of the multifidus muscle in patients treated with a classical open or a minimally invasive approach...

STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional comparative study. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the flexion-relaxation phenomenon (FRP), in standing trunk flexion and slumped sitting tasks, by comparing children and adolescents suffering from nonspecific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) with controls (CTRL). SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: The absence of the FRP can accurately discriminate adults with NSCLBP from those without during standing trunk flexion and slumped sitting tasks...

PURPOSE: This review addressed the question of whether minimally invasive surgery after traumatic thoracolumbar spine fractures can reduce paraspinal muscle injury, limit changes in muscular structure and function, and lead to better functional outcome. Special emphasis was given to studies using imaging techniques or electromyography to evaluate the lumbar multifidus muscle structure and function. METHODS: The authors searched the literature in the PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, by cross-referencing and additional hand search...

Study Design: Reliability study. Purpose: To examine the reliability of novice and experienced raters for measurements of the size and composition of the cervical extensor muscles using a thresholding technique. Overview of Literature: Although some authors have reported on the dependability of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements of the cervical muscles, there remains some variability regarding intrarater and interrater reliabilities, and few studies have examined the associated measurement error...

Changes in the recruitment pattern of trunk muscles may contribute to the development of recurrent or chronic symptoms in people with low back pain (LBP). However, the recruitment pattern of trunk muscles during lifting tasks associated with a high risk of LBP has not been clearly determined in recurrent LBP. The present study aimed to investigate potential differences in trunk muscles recruitment patterns between individuals with recurrent LBP and asymptomatic individuals during lifting. The subjects were 25 individuals with recurrent LBP and 20 asymptomatic individuals...

PURPOSE: Lumbar paraspinal muscle morphology has recently been evaluated in several studies with conflicting results. Several studies have performed single-slice evaluations of paraspinal muscle morphology, whereas other studies have done a multi-level assessment; this methodological difference might explain the observed different results. Our study evaluated if a single-slice axial measurement is representative of the entire lumbar musculature. METHODS: We included 80 adult patients who were consecutively evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for spinal symptoms...

OBJECTIVE: To study effects of strengthening exercise with strong tendon on the lumbosacral multifidus muscle. METHODS: Among 30 healthy volunteers, there were 21 males and 9 females, with an average age of(31.30±6.48) years old(ranged, 25 to 55 years old). The mean BMI was (21.70±1.95) kg/m²(ranged, 18.1 to 24.9 kg/m²). The ultrasonic image was used to analyze the thickness of lumbosacral multifidus(LM) under the follow conditions: supine position, and supine position with leg lifting 30°, 60°, 90°; seat and hip flexion, flexion to limit position, front to limit position with both hands climbing and strengthening the kidneys and the waist...

INTRODUCTION: Back pain is associated with increased lumbar paraspinal muscle (LPM) stiffness identified by manual palpation and strain elastography. Recently, magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) has allowed the stiffness of muscle to be characterized noninvasively in vivo, providing quantitative 3D stiffness maps (elastograms). The aim of this study was to characterize the stiffness (shear modulus, SM) of the LPM (multifidus and erector spinae) using MRE. MATERIALS AND METHODS: MRE of the lumbar region was performed on seven adults in supine position...

Prolonged inactivity, such as bed rest induces several detrimental changes within a short timeframe. Impaired postural balance and responses of trunk muscles to (un)expected perturbations were both shown to be impaired after bed rest. Certain populations (e.g., astronauts) are exposed to hypoxic environment in addition to inactivity, similar to bed rest. While the isolated negative effects of hypoxia on postural balance have been observed before, no study to date has examined the combined effects of hypoxia and bed rest on postural balance or trunk muscle responses...

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical effects and multifidus muscle injury of different approaches, including unilateral Wiltse intermuscular approach and intramuscular approach combined with contralateral decompression, in treating thoracolumbar burst fracture. METHODS: Forty-three patients with thoracolumbar burst fracture were enrolled in the study from January 2010 to December 2014, including 29 males and 14 females with an average age of 42.3 years old(ranged from 21 to 64 years old)...

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the advantages and disadvantages of two different surgical approaches combined fixation with lumbar interbody fusion in treating single segmental lumbar vertebra diseases. METHODS: The clinical data of 86 patients with single segmental lumbar vertebra diseases treated from June 2011 to June 2013 was retrospectively analyzed. There were 33 males and 53 females, aged from 28 to 76 years old with an average of 53.0 years. Among them, there were 39 cases of lumbar disc degeneration, 22 cases of lumbar disc herniation complicated with spinal canal stenosis, 9 cases of huge lumbar disc herniation and 16 cases of lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis (Meyerding degree I )...

There is evidence that patients with low back pain favor their trunk muscles when moving. However, it is unknown whether this maladaptive behavior is generalized across different functional tasks. This study analyzed the back muscle activity of patients with chronic low back pain compared to asymptomatic controls during five functional tasks. The secondary aim of this study was to test whether the electromyographic activity of patients' back muscles was correlated with either the TAMPA scale score or the Örebro Questionnaire...

Patients with low back pain commonly exhibit impaired morphology and function of spinal musculature that may be quantifiable using shear-wave elastography (SWE). The purpose of this study was to assess the intra-rater and test-retest reliability of SWE elasticity measures of the lumbar erector spinae and multifidus muscles during rest and differing levels of contraction in asymptomatic individuals. This single-group repeated-measures design involved a baseline measurement session and a follow-up session 3 days later...

CONTEXT: Kinesio taping® (KT) is a therapeutic modality frequently used in the clinical practice for the treatment of various musculoskeletal disorders. It is often applied in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) to decrease pain and improve functional capacity. However, it is not known, whether thoracolumbar fascia Kinesio Taping® (KT) technique can decrease back pain, restore normal activity of paraspinal muscles and improve functional capacity in patients with lumbar disc herniation (LDH)...

The aim of this study was to investigate whether elimination of multifidus muscle in rats causes intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration similar to that found after IVD lesion. Data were obtained from 36 male Wistar rats randomly assigned to one of three groups: (i) IVD lesion, in which the L4/L5 IVD was stabbed; (ii) multifidus muscle resection, in which all multifidus tissue between L3 and L6 was excised bilaterally; (iii) control, in which no intervention was applied. At 7, 14, and 28 days post-intervention, L4/L5 IVDs were harvested for histological analysis; left and right multifidus fascicles between L3 and S1 (from control and IVD lesion animals) and medial longissimus between L1 and S3 (from all animals) were dissected and weighed...

Traditional posterior lumbar approaches in a transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) require subperiosteal dissection of bilateral paraspinal muscles to provide adequate exposure. This may traumatize the multifidus muscle and its afferent innervations leading to postoperative paraspinal muscle atrophy. Minimizing such intraoperative trauma has been identified as an important factor in the reduction of postoperative lumbar pain. An approach via a blunt dissection through Wiltse's plane, which lies between the longissimus and multifidus muscles, may minimize postoperative pain...

PURPOSE: To determine the association of paraspinal muscles and psoas relative cross-sectional area (RCSA) and fat signal fraction (FSF) with sex, age, and intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) in symptomatic patients. METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated 80 adult patients with spinal symptoms using T2-weighted magnetic resonance images. We determined RCSA and FSF of the paraspinal muscles (erector spinae and multifidus) and psoas from L1-L2 to L5-S1; we determined IDD using the Pfirrmann classification...

This study examined trunk muscle activation, balance and proprioception while squatting with a water-filled training tube (WT) and a traditional barbell (BB), with either closed (CE) or open eyes (OE). Eighteen male elite Gaelic footballers performed an isometric squat under the following conditions: BB-OE, BB-CE, WT-OE and WT-CE. The activity of rectus abdominis (RA), external oblique (EO) and multifidus (MF) was measured using electromyography, along with sway of the centre of pressure (CoP) using a force platform...

BACKGROUND: Muscular performance is an important factor for the mechanical stability of lumbar spine in humans, in which, the co-contraction of lumbar muscles plays a key role. We hypothesized that when executing different daily living motions, the performance of the lumbar muscle co-contraction stabilization mechanism varies between patients with lumbar disc herniation (LDH) and healthy controls. Hence, in this study, co-contraction performance of lumbar muscles between patients with LDH and healthy subjects was explored to check if there are significant differences between the two groups when performing four representative movements...